Author: Editor

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Gateway Journalism Review is looking for people to analyze their local media.

Notice how we’re avoiding the traditional terms for this position. We don’t really want ombudsmen because that doesn’t really define what we need. The same can be said of news councils. Truth vigilantes don’t fill our needs either.

Media like their subjects to be easy: their heroes to be heroes, their villains to be villains.

Celebrities are wonderful, until they do something that proves they aren’t wonderful. Stories must be framed to make it easy for readers to understand what really is happening.

And then a story like that of Joe Paterno comes along and it makes media’s job so much more difficult. For 50 years, Paterno was the ideal of college football coaches. His 409 wins were the most of any Division I football coach. He graduated 80 percent of his students. He gave money back to his school. He was easily framed as the granddad of college football — until last fall when news about Jerry Sandusky broke. Sandusky, the former Paterno assisted is currently charged with over 40 counts of sexual abuse with boys under the age of 15. Another Paterno assistant, Mike McQueary told Paterno that he saw Sandusky raping a young boy. Paterno notified his superiors but never approached Sandusky or the police about the incident. Paterno could have done more than just report his knowledge of Sandusky’s misdeeds. He should have helped those kids.

America’s true political center can be found by examining the state of Kansas, Salt Lake County, Utah, and NASCAR fans.

Many liberals may have just blanched at that thought, but this is the argument Tim Groseclose makes in “Left Turn: How Media Bias Distorts the American Mind.” Groseclose argues that a liberal media bias distorts the average American’s political viewpoint and tilts the political field to the left. He also claims conservative news organizations such as Fox News actually present a centrist point of view.

New York, N.Y. – Anthony Lewis is a friend of the First Amendment. But the former New York Times Supreme Court reporter said last week that the court had gone too far in recognizing the free speech of hateful funeral protesters and corporations that spend big money on politics.

Lewis said the current Supreme Court is “reluctant to draw any lines” on the First Amendment. The court’s approach seems to be so simplistic as to say “it’s speech so it’s free.”

Lewis, who wrote books popularizing First Amendment history, made the comment Wednesday evening at a Media Law Resource Center dinner where he was receiving the Brennan Defense of Freedom Award, named after the late Justice William J. Brennan Jr. award.

Following the rulings in the Tribune Company’s bankruptcy case can be mind-boggling. The latest ruling, one that could eventually help Sam Zell, was reported on today in the Chicago Tribune. Take a look at this story.